CIC seeks more Information Commissioners

Chennai: Citing mounting pendency of cases
involving RTI appeals and disputes due to manpower shortage,
the Central Information Commission has requested the Centre to
appoint more Information Commissioners, a top official said
on Friday.

"We have requested the Government of India to appoint more
Information Commissioners. We are also trying to evolve
methods by which we can increase the number of disposals,"
Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra told
reporters here on the sidelines of a workshop on RTI Act.

Five posts of Information Commissioners were still vacant
and "we need much more manpower", he said.
The CIC was having only 160 employees, and it was "not a
adequate, sufficient number," he said, adding due to this
cases were taking eight to 10 months to come up, against
ideal time of three months. "If it is more than three months,
in our opinion, it is pointless."

He said every month CIC was receiving over 2,300 cases,
while it was clearing only 1,800, resulting in backlog.
Mishra said over 23,000 cases were pending with the CIC
alone besides those before various state information
commissions.

He also said the CIC had started posting details about the
number of pending cases at the end of every month on its
website. "We have already started. Other Commissioners will
also be doing so."

Clearing concerns that the RTI Act was being misused, he
said, "My personal experience in the last three years in the
Central Information Commission is that the instances of misuse
of RTI act is absolutely infinitely small.. There were
overwhelmingly large number of cases with genuine reasons."